The Reliance School

2,600 Words / 10 min. Read

Climate anxiety, eco-grief, solastalgia;¹ a whole lexicon is emerging to describe the psychological effects of the climate crisis. We’re not the first generation to encounter catastrophe, but what makes our situation unique is the nature of this threat. It’s not a matter of good versus evil, or even in-group vs. out-group; we’re all complicit in this problem to varying degrees,² simply by participating in society. And while most threats are confined to distinct regions, climate change is a global tragedy of the commons,³ with no global authority to resolve it.

The sheer scale and complexity of this problem is part of what makes it so difficult to process.^4,5 It encompasses everything from energy and physics to ecology, sociology, politics, and economics; even the paradigm of growth itself.⁶ No one person can solve it on their own, but so far humanity at large has proved equally incapable.⁷ Philosopher Timothy Morton coined the term “hyperobject” to describe concepts like this,⁸ which are so vast that they often transcend our comprehension:

The word ‘hyperobject’ offers a useful shorthand for why threats like global warming are so difficult to understand or accept: they threaten our survival in ways that defy traditional modes of thinking about reality and humiliate our cognitive powers, a disorienting shift that sends many people reeling into superstition, polarization, and denial.⁹

As humans, we’re adapted to deal with acute stress (“fight or flight” situations),¹⁰ but not chronic stress, which tends to wear us down over time.¹¹ Living day-to-day with existential threats on the horizon understandably causes feelings of anxiety, fear, grief, depression, and powerlessness.¹²

If you’ve been struggling with this, you’re not alone; over two-thirds of Americans are worried about the impact of climate change on the planet.¹³ Climate anxiety is even more widespread among younger generations, and for good reason (they’ll be facing the worst of it).¹⁴ 77% of young adults agreed with the statement “the future is frightening,”¹⁵ and over half reported that they were hesitant to have children.¹⁶

While these feelings are valid, no one wants to live their life in a constant state of unease; that only detracts from our ability to build a more sustainable future. There are big challenges ahead, and if we’re going to overcome them, establishing a baseline of wellbeing is the first order of business.^17,18 So in this post, we’re going to look at 6 practical steps to help you let go of fear and anxiety, retake your agency and empowerment, and find meaning and purpose in the face of these challenges.

Most of our readers will find themselves somewhere on a spectrum from aware and somewhat concerned, to deeply affected by the state of the world. But if climate anxiety is impeding your ability to function in daily life (such as showing up for work, maintaining relationships, and taking basic care of yourself), that’s a sign that you should seek help from a personal counselor or therapist. There’s only so much we can do from behind the screen, so please make use of any professional resources that are available to you.

1. Stop doomscrolling.

When we’re swiping through Facebook, Instagram, Reddit,¹⁹ YouTube, and TikTok, we’re engaging with the most stimulating content available at any given moment. These platforms aren’t optimized for our mental health; they’re designed to maximize engagement,²⁰ and the content that keeps people glued to their screens often stirs up negative emotions like fear, anger, and sadness.²¹

Before you can begin to work with those emotions, you need to turn off the tap on what’s triggering them.²² If you’re doomscrolling on your phone, start by uninstalling the apps that tend to suck you in. You can still access that content through your browser, but it’ll be a little clunky (that’s the point). Disable notifications from all your non-essential apps (everything besides calls, texts, and emails), and try setting your phone to grayscale mode; without eye-catching colors vying for your attention, you’re more likely to stay focused on the task at hand.²³

Most importantly, take some time away from your devices. When you head out for groceries or a walk, leave your phone at home. When you’re getting ready for bed, leave your phone or laptop in another room.²⁴ There’s nothing wrong with reading articles on climate change, but by setting boundaries for your screen time, you’re giving yourself some time and space to process that information.

2. Come back to the present.

When I’m anxious, it’s because I’m living in the future. When I’m depressed, it’s because I’m living in the past. We crucify ourselves between two thieves: regret for yesterday, and fear of tomorrow. -Joseph Simmons²⁵

The future can be a scary place; the good news is it never actually arrives! The only moment we have is the present, and it’s often much easier to deal with than the hypothetical scenarios we fixate on.

If you’re in the midst of a crisis - physical, emotional, interpersonal, or financial - then take whatever steps you need to prioritize your wellbeing and address the tasks at hand. If you’re facing down a flood, fire, heat wave, drought, food shortage, or civil unrest, your only goal is getting yourself and your loved ones to safety.

But take a deep breath and check in. Do you have air to breathe, water to drink, food to eat, and a safe place to sleep? Don’t think a year ahead, a month ahead, or even a day ahead; think about right now. If your basic needs are taken care of, let yourself feel that. If you’re not presently in crisis, let yourself feel that, too. We can plan for the future, and take steps to mitigate threats, but allowing ourselves to stay in a state of worry or apprehension only wears us down, and impedes our ability to respond when it’s really necessary.

So how can we interrupt those anxious thought loops and bring ourselves back to the present? One of the best ways is to establish a consistent mindfulness practice. That may be as simple as setting aside 5 minutes each morning to sit in a comfortable position, bring your awareness to your breath, and notice your thoughts as they arise.²⁶ But if you’re brand-new to meditation and mindfulness, we’d recommend attending a workshop or weekly group (both for the value of instruction, and to help keep you accountable with your new practice).

3. Feel your feelings.

When we bring ourselves back to the present, all of our worries and fears instantly go away. Kidding, of course; if only it were that easy! One of the reasons we avoid bringing ourselves into the present (and end up burying our noses in screens instead) is because it can be uncomfortable to sit with these feelings.

But when we repress, avoid, or try to “think away” our feelings, they don’t disappear; they just find another way to express themselves, which only ends up prolonging our experience. When we allow those feelings to surface, and then let them naturally dissipate, we might find that they’re a lot less scary than they seemed. As neuroscientist Jill Bolte Taylor writes:

When a person has a reaction to something in their environment, there’s a 90-second chemical process that happens in the body; after that, any remaining emotional response is just the person choosing to stay in that emotional loop.

Something happens in the external world and chemicals are flushed through your body which puts it on full alert. For those chemicals to totally flush out of the body it takes less than 90 seconds. This means that for 90 seconds you can watch the process happening, you can feel it happening, and then you can watch it go away.²⁷

The next time you’re reading or thinking about climate change, take a moment to pause and notice what’s coming up for you. An emotion wheel can be helpful for this; it starts with simple feelings (like joy, fear, and sadness) and then branches out into more specific feelings (like frustration, elation, or panic). This can help us pinpoint our emotions and understand exactly what we’re feeling.

If you’re having trouble identifying your feelings, physical sensations can act as a bridge and help us locate our emotions in our body. Are you feeling cool, hot, tense, heavy, or weak? Do you feel that in your throat, your stomach, your shoulders? What happens when you allow yourself to feel that sensation, and maybe even move towards it?

In most cases, simply naming and accepting these feelings is all it takes for them to move on. But if you’ve been holding on to your emotions for a while, you may find you’ve built up a “backlog” that may take more time to let go of. In that case, try tuning in to your body and what it’s asking for in the moment. Most often that will involve some kind of physical release, like moving or exercising, crying, or taking some time to lie down and rest.

Lastly, remember that fear and sadness are perfectly normal responses to an existential crisis.²⁸ As climate psychologist Leslie Davenport writes:

One thing that's important to understand is that we view distress, upset sadness, grief, and anger about climate change to be a really reasonable, even healthy reaction.

It's built into us as people that if we feel risks, threats, and experience losses, there's going to be upset. So it's really important to acknowledge that if you're feeling that on any level of intensity, it just means you're paying attention, you care, and you're empathetic to what's happening to our world.²⁹

Your feelings are a sign that change is needed somewhere; instead of focusing on the sign itself, let it point you in a new direction.

4. Find community.

Remember how you’re not alone? There are millions of people out there who feel the same way you do; go out there and talk with them! Studies have shown that conversations are a powerful tool for helping people accept the reality of climate change,³⁰ while sharing in a group setting can be extremely cathartic for people struggling with climate anxiety.³¹ As psychologist Sarah Schwartz notes:

Conversations, support and collective action all require building community, which is key in addressing challenges that seem insurmountable, Schwartz said. “The role of relationships and social support is huge in the difference between ‘we can do something’ and ‘let’s all just hunker down and isolate in our own anxiety and paralysis.’"³²

We’d recommend starting with your friends or family, as they're the people closest to you. But if you’re having trouble finding support and understanding in your immediate social circle, there are a number of organizations that host remote and in-person gatherings with like-minded people. The Good Grief Network, the All We Can Save Project, Climate Awakening, Climate Café, Climate & Mind, and Living Resilience all offer frameworks and resources for climate-focused conversations.

5. Take positive action.

Some people will claim that it doesn’t make a difference what we eat, how we travel, or what we buy; it’s all insignificant compared to the actions of governments, corporations, and society at large. We disagree with that; we’re firm believers in the power of individual climate action (it's also a false dichotomy).³³

But let’s put all of that aside for the moment, because right now we’re less concerned about the impacts of your actions on the system; we’re interested in the impacts of your actions on you. And multiple studies have shown that taking action is one of the single most effective ways to combat climate anxiety.^{34,35,36,37,38} To quote Davenport again:

There are lots of tools for processing complex feelings, learning how to calm our nervous system, not getting stuck in obsessive thinking, taking media breaks when necessary. And that's a big part of it.

But also we really encourage people to find their own way of becoming part of the solution. How can each person contribute in some way to creating a healthier, safer world? Not only is that something that we all need, but it's empowering to not feel as victimized by what's happening.²⁹

When we take action, we’re getting ourselves out of a fatalistic mindset that keeps us feeling powerless and paralyzed. We’re cultivating personal agency, becoming a small part of a bigger solution, and beginning to live in integrity with our beliefs, which allows us to let go of the guilt and cognitive dissonance we feel as bystanders.

Climate action comes in many forms; it could include collective action,^39,40 such as voting for climate-forward policies, participating in protests and demonstrations, or volunteering with environmental organizations. It could involve living more simply,⁴¹ driving and flying less,⁴² changing your diet,⁴³ switching to more efficient appliances,⁴⁴ or cutting back on shopping and overconsumption.⁴⁵ It might mean composting your food waste⁴⁶ and rewilding your backyard.⁴⁷ Or it could involve building personal resilience, by preparing for disasters and reducing your exposure to risk.^48,49

Whatever you choose, the key is taking real-world action. Don’t waste your time on performative activism, like posting on social media or arguing with strangers online.⁵⁰ And while purchasing carbon offsets or credits is a good supplement to climate action, it’s not a replacement for it; if you want to create positive feedback loops, you need to be able to see and feel the results of your actions firsthand.

6. Expand your perspective.

We began this post by acknowledging the exceptional nature of the climate crisis, but it’s also important to acknowledge that the century-long period of peace, prosperity, and (relative) abundance that we’ve enjoyed here in America is exceptional as well.

Since time immemorial, the human experience has been characterized by suffering.⁵¹ From famine, plagues, war, slavery, genocide, and societal collapse, to the near-extinction of humanity itself,⁵² our species has weathered the unimaginable more times than we can count.⁵³

In spite of this, humanity has managed to find meaning, purpose, fulfillment, and joy across the ages. So remember: you are descended from the people who survived. Their perseverance, resilience, and strength is written into your very genes. We’re not the first generation to find ourselves up against the odds, and with your help, we won’t be the last.

Footnotes & References

1. The Era of Climate Change Has Created a New Emotion (Madeline Ostrander, The Atlantic)
2. The 5 greatest challenges to fighting climate change (Kara Baskin, MIT Sloan)
3. Tragedy of the commons (Wikipedia)
4. The psychology of climate anxiety (Joseph Dodds, Cambridge University Press)
5. Fostering collective climate action and leadership: Insights from a pilot experiment involving mindfulness and compassion (Lena Ramstetter, Silke Rupprecht, Luis Mundaca, Walter Osika, Cecilia Stenfors, Johannes Klackl, Christine Wamsler, iScience)
6. The Delusion of Infinite Economic Growth (Chirag Dhara, Vandana Singh, Scientific American)
7. World will look back at 2023 as year humanity exposed its inability to tackle climate crisis, scientists say (Jonathan Watts, The Guardian)
8. Introducing the idea of ‘hyperobjects’ (Timothy Morton, High Country News)
9. At the End of the World, It’s Hyperobjects All the Way Down (Laura Hudson, WIRED)
10. Understanding the stress response (Howard LeWine, Harvard Health Publishing)
11. Chronic stress can wreak havoc on your mind and body (Dana Sparks, Mayo Clinic)
12. Climate anxiety in children and young people and their beliefs about government responses to climate change: a global survey (Caroline Hickman, Elizabeth Marks, Panu Pihkala, Susan Clayton, Eric Lewandowski, Elouise Mayall, Britt Wray, Catriona Mellor, Lise van Susteren, Lancet Planet Health)
    
13. APA Public Opinion Poll - Annual Meeting 2020 (APA)
14. How Climate Change Will Hit Younger Generations (Andrea Thompson, Scientific American)
15. Young People's Voices on Climate Anxiety, Government Betrayal and Moral Injury: A Global Phenomenon (Caroline Hickman, Elizabeth Marks, Panu Pihkala, Susan Clayton, Eric Lewandowski, Elouise Mayall, Britt Wray, Catriona Mellor, Lise van Susteren, The Lancet)
16. Climate emotions, thoughts, and plans among US adolescents and young adults (Eric Lewandowski, Susan Clayton, Lukas Olbrich, Joseph Sakshaug, Britt Wray, Sarah Schwartz, Jura Augustinavicius, Peter Howe, McKenna Parnes, Sacha Wright, Caitlyn Carpenterk, Arkadiusz Wiśniowski, Diego Perez Ruiz, Lise Van Susteren, Lancet Planet Health)
17. How Can Climate Change Anxiety Induce Both Pro-Environmental Behaviours and Eco-Paralysis? (Matteo Innocenti, Gabriele Santarelli, Gaia Surya Lombardi, Lorenzo Ciabini, Doris Zjalic, Mattia Di Russo, Chiara Cadeddu, International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health)
18. Reducing eco-anxiety is a critical step in achieving any climate action (Kerrie Pickering, Gary Pickering, The Conversation)
19. The Subreddit /r/Collapse Has Become the Doomscrolling Capital of the Internet. Can Its Users Break Free? (Billy Perrigo, Time)
20. A Psychiatrist’s Perspective on Social Media Algorithms and Mental Health (Tammy Qiu, Stanford Unversity)
21. Angry by design: toxic communication and technical architectures (Luke Munn, Humanities and Social Sciences Communications)
22. What to Do with Climate Emotions (Jia Tolentino, California Institute of Integral Studies)
23. Is the Answer to Phone Addiction a Worse Phone? (Nellie Bowles, The New York Times)
24. Screens and Your Sleep: The Impact of Nighttime Use (Joanna Cooper, Sutter Health)
25. "If you are depressed..." (Stefan Stenudd, Taoistic)
26. 7 Simple Mindfulness Exercises You Can Easily Fit Into Your Day (Kirsten Nunez, Sabrina Romanoff, Self)
27. My Stroke of Insight (Jill Bolte Taylor)
28. Your Crushing Anxiety About the Climate Crisis Is Normal (Antonia Mufarech, Smithsonian Magazine)
29. Climate change causing a sense of despair? Here are some ways to combat it (John Yang, Andrew Corkery, PBS)
30. Discussing global warming leads to greater acceptance of climate science (Matthew Goldberg, Sander van der Linden, Edward Maibach, Anthony Leiserowitz, PNAS)
31. 'Safe spaces' and community building for climate scientists, exploring emotions through a case study (Neal Haddaway, Joe Duggan, Leibniz Institute for Psychology)
32. One solution to climate change? Talk about it (Katherine Rapin, Fast Company)
33. Debunking the false choice between individual behavior change and systems change (Lina Fedirko, Kate Power, ClimateWorks)
34. Climate anxiety, wellbeing and pro-environmental action: correlates of negative emotional responses to climate change in 32 countries (Charles Ogunbode, Rouven Doran, Daniel Hanss, Maria Ojala, Katariina Salmela-Aro, Karlijn van den Broek, Navjot Bhullar, Sibele Aquino, Tiago Marot, Julie Schermer, Anna Wlodarczyk, Su Lu, Feng Jiang, Daniela Acquadro Maran, Radha Yadav, Rahkman Ardi, Razieh Chegeni, Elahe Ghanbarian, Somayeh Zand, Reza Najafi, Joonha Park, Takashi Tsubakita, Chee-Seng Tan, JohnBosco Chika Chukwuorji, Kehinde Aderemi Ojewumi , Hajra Tahir, Mai Albzour, Marc Reyes, Samuel Lins, Violeta Enea, Tatiana Volkodav, Tomas Sollar, Ginés Navarro-Carrillo, Jorge Torres-Marín, Winfred Mbungu, Arin Ayanian, Jihane Ghorayeb, Charles Onyutha, Michael Lomas, Mai Helmy, Laura Martínez-Buelvas, Aydin Bayad, Mehmet Karasu, Journal of Environmental Psychology)
35. Climate anxiety: What predicts it and how is it related to climate action? (Lorraine Whitmarsh, Lois Player, Angelica Jiongco, Melissa James, Marc Williams, Elizabeth Marks, Patrick Kennedy-Williams, Journal of Environmental Psychology)
36. The psychology of climate anxiety (Joseph Dodds, BJPsych Bulletin)
37. Climate change anxiety and mental health: Environmental activism as buffer (Sarah Schwartz, Laelia Benoit, Susan Clayton, McKenna Parnes, Lance Swenson, Sarah Lowe, Current Psychology)
38. How to Calm Your Climate Anxiety (Molly Peterson, The New York Times)
39. How to Take Collective Action to Combat Climate Change (Austin Brown, UC Davis)
40. Collective climate action: When do people turn into collective environmental agents? (Immo Fritsche, Torsten Masson, Current Opinion in Psychology)
41. As Students Face Climate Anxiety, Taking Action with Friends and Family is the Best Approach (Marianne Krasny, Cornell University)
42. The climate mitigation gap (Seth Wynes, Kimberly Nicholas, Environmental Research Letters)
43. Could going vegan help reduce greenhouse gas emissions? (Ker Than, Stanford School of Sustainability)
44. How heat pumps can help fight global warming (Ula Chrobak, Popular Science)
45. How Buying Stuff Drives Climate Change (Renée Cho, Columbia Climate School)
46. How Wasted Food Turns into Huge Amounts of Greenhouse Gas (Deepa Padmanaban, Scientific American)
47. What is rewilding and how is it relevant to climate change? (Leo Mercer, Sam Kumari, Georgina Kyriacou, Grantham Research Institute)
48. Reducing personal climate risk to reduce personal climate anxiety (Jeremy Fyke, Andrew Weaver, Nature Climate Change)
49. Climate anxiety, coping strategies and planning for the future in environmental degree students in the UK (Cami Daeninck, Vasiliki Kioupi, Ans Vercammen, Frontiers in Psychology)
50. Performative activism (Wikipedia)
51. dukkha (Britannica)
52. Our Human Ancestors Very Nearly Went Extinct 900,000 Years Ago, Genetics Suggest (Brian Handwerk, Smithsonian Magazine)
53. List of wars by death toll (Wikipedia)